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Nov 29, 2018

Thursday November 29th 2018 C.C. Burnikel

Theme: Codology - I go to my Irish roots with the informal word for "an act of bluffing or deception." Here C.C. gives us six genuine "-ologies" each with an alternate definition. How many of those six did you know the genuine one? I scored three for sure, and one roughly-maybe.

16A. Study of a portentous woodchuck?: PHILOLOGY. Study of languages in oral and written historical context. Phil as in Punxsutawney Phil and his Groundhog Day winter prediction. I didn't know that a woodchuck was a groundhog, or vice-versa. Now I'll never forget.

23A. Study of tears?: CRYOLOGY. The study of snow and ice, or refrigeration. And bawling, like I do every time I watch "Ghost".

51A. Study of common articles?: THEOLOGY. Nature of God and religious belief. Or The Study of "the", per C.C.

62A. Study of hiking choices?: PATHOLOGY. The cause and effect of diseases.

9D. Study of literary tools?: PENOLOGY. I thought this one might be a bit of the old codology - but, it's the study of punishment of crime and prison management.

38D. Study of lids and caps?: TOPOLOGY. The study of a particular place. It has a special meaning in mathematics, the definition of which I understand about as well as I understand Tibetan:

"... a branch of mathematics concerned with those properties of geometric configurations (such as point sets) which are unaltered by elastic deformations (such as a stretching or a twisting) that are homeomorphisms ..."

Thanks to C.C. for this puzzle, and for bailing me out last week with the blog, I completely forgot that it was Thursday, hence the need for a last-minute pinch-hit. It's amazing what she does to keep us all on track.

9. Driving range instructors: PROS. Golf ones. Mine was an LPGA tour pro and she could hit the ball a country mile. I couldn't.

13. Central cooling systs.: A/CS

14. Kick: OOMPH

15. She converted to Judaism after marrying her comedy partner: MEARA. Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller.

18. Opposition group: ANTIS

19. Submits returns online: E-FILES

20. Prevents legally: ENJOINS

22. Hoppy brew, for short: IPA. India Pale Ale, as we should all know by now.

24. Humanities maj.: SOC. Sociology. Didn't make the grade as one of C.C.'s themers, so abbreviated and relegated to the fill.

26. Dash gauge: TACH. Tachometer. Rev counter to me.

29. Slovenia neighbor, to the IOC: CRO. Croatia, as abbrevated by the International Olympic Committee.

30. Player of The Bride in "Kill Bill" films, familiarly: UMA. Ms. Thurman, less familiarly. Here she is about to have her breastplate pierced by a hypodermic administered with "a stabbing motion" by John Travolta in Pulp Fiction:

31. Made a blunder: ERRED

33. Take suddenly: GRAB

37. Small store: MART

39. Fuzzy fruit: KIWIS

41. Exercise in a studio: YOGA

42. Android operating system named for a cookie: OREO

43. Trusty mount: STEED

45. Shaving cream type: GEL

46. "American Experience" network: PBS

49. Bart's bus driver: OTTO

50. Draw upon: USE

55. That woman: SHE

57. Echo Dot-waking words: HI ALEXA! Siri on my phone never seems to understand me. I wonder if Alexa would do a better job.

58. Cornell's home: ITHACA

61. Others, in Cuba: OTROS

65. Tells all: SINGS

66. "At the Movies" co-host: EBERT. In 1975, he became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.

67. Shepherd's pie piece: PEA. Mmmm, Food! When I cook lamb shanks, I add an extra one to the pot especially for turning into shepherd's pie. If someone serves you a "shepherd's pie" made with ground beef, you can look disdainfully at the plate and point out that it's a cottage pie.

68. Craftsy website: ETSY

69. Brother in Roman lore: REMUS. He and Romulus had a rocky relationship. Or maybe that should be a hilly relationship.

70. Give a darn: SEW. Nice!

Down:

1. It may have an "X": MAP. I wondered why a BAP would have an X? I went on a wild ride of imagination, as a bap in parts of the UK is a colloquial name for a type of bread roll. Then the BAA/MAA penny dropped. What do you do with a bap? Make a "chip butty" of course:

2. Physical discomfort: ACHE

3. "Whatever!": AS IF I CARE! These entries can be the devil to parse, this one no exception.

4. "Missed your chance!": TOO LATE!

5. Romeo or Juliet: ROLE

6. "A Sorta Fairytale" singer Tori: AMOS. I was going to link the video on YouTube but it's a little weird.

7. New car stat: MPG

8. More timid: SHYER

10. 7:11, e.g.: RATIO. Because "Convenience Store" doesn't fit.

11. Circular gasket: O-RING

12. Impertinent: SASSY

15. The Masters, e.g.: MAJOR. By tradition, professional golf's first major of the year. It's the only major which is an invitational tournament, and is always played over the same course - Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia. The course was laid in the 1930's on an old flower nursery. The scenery is stunning.

17. Carmex target: LIP. I use this magic stuff I get OTC in England called Zovirax, I think it's only available on Rx here.

21. MoMA location: NYC. The Museum of Modern Art in New York. There's a fabulous restaurant in the atrium.

23. Puppy plaything: CHEW TOY

24. Heavyweight fight?: SUMO

25. "Rubáiyát" poet: OMAR

27. First rescue boat: ARK. Nice!

28. Football Hall of Famer Carter: CRIS. Respected TV pundit now. One of the players to make a successful transition to broadcast.

32. Count calories: DIET

34. Officers who follow their own code: ROGUE COPS. One of my favorite entries today.

35. Many months: AGES

36. Christian of "The Big Short": BALE

40. Matching group: SET

44. Throw back some Absolut, say: DO SHOTS. DO A SHOT didn't work. More tricky parsing.

How nice to be back in the US and have a C.C. / Steve presentation. What is most impressive is that these theme words are are used uniquely, despite earlier attempts at OLOGY pun puzzle. They are tight and flow well. I loved HI ALEXA and agree that AS IF I CARE! was the hardest to parse/

Good Morning, Steve and friends. What a clever puzzle! I caught the theme with TOPOLOGY. Hubby is a mathematician and his thesis was in the field of Topology. A cup of coffee and a donut are the same topologically.

Congratulations to C.C. for her THIRD puzzle in the last week, Saturday & Monday in the WSJ, and todays in the LA Times. And especially thanks for very few A&E clues. No unknowns today.

I didn't get the anOLOGY at first until the cross of PEN & CRY OLOGY. I had filled 1D as MAC, thinking that maybe Apple had named the MAC computers like their phones. Last fill was changing MAC to MAP because PHILOLOGY made more sense than CHILOLOGY and the V8 moment about Phil. MAC & MAP and Steve had BAP & MAP.

HI ALEXA- I've been saying Hey Google to my desktop (Chrome) and Android phone.My previous desktop was named HAL. The current one is HAL-2.

I did see the movie "The Big Short", which was about finding a way to make money by shorting housing market. Why they didn't include John Paulson, who only made $15 Billion that year, makes no sense. Housing prices were out of whack then and they are getting that way now. Be prepared for the next collapse in prices; don't know when, but it will happen.

The next 'Big Short" will be the collapse of municipal and state retirement systems, probably Illinois and California first. Very few are really solvent.

Yay! D-o got the theme. PHILOLOGY was timely. I made a list of the best movies on Netflix that I'd never seen, and yesterday it was Groundhog Day's turn. Knew the meaning of 5 of the 6 ologies. I thought TOPOLOGY was the study of surfaces, as in a topological map. Guess not. I'll take that CSO at 49a. Thanx for the outing C.C., and for the tour, Steve.

Thanks CC and Steve The seemingly difficult puzzle straightened itself out after the OLOGYs showed up. Fun puzzle with unknown MEARA and EBERT appearing via the perps. Woke up to three inches of fresh winter wonderland .We won’t need to be like Bing and only dream of a White Christmas after all. Boots, mitts, shovels and scrapers say have a wonderful day.

Britannica has an easier to understand definition of TOPOLOGY: Topology, branch of mathematics, sometimes referred to as “rubber sheet geometry,” in which two objects are considered equivalent if they can be continuously deformed into one another through such motions in space as bending, twisting, stretching, and shrinking while disallowing tearing apart or gluing together parts.

D-O: Topology is related to the study of surfaces. That is why a coffee cup and a donut are the same. The handle on the coffee cup makes the donut hole. If you could indent the donut, you could make the bowl of the coffee cup.

We just had Carmex, and like Bob Niles wanted ZIT (but held back). Sounds more like where one would go to shop for low riders.

I've never thought of MART being a small store. I think of Dallas' InfoMart, Walmart and KMart. (Of course there are only a small NUMBER of KMarts left.)

Thanks to our founder and CEO for the fine puzzle. My favorites were PHIL OLOGY and "give a darn" for SEW. No "least favorites" today, I liked 'em all. And thanks to Steve for the fun tour. I'm glad there was some FOOD! to chew on today.

I loved the theme. FIR in decent time. I started in the NE as so realized quickly that the theme was -ology, which I then filled in for all the theme answers. Great puns, especially first rescue boat/ ARK. The only original -ology I didn't know was TOPOLOGY. Like DO, I confused it with topoGRAPHY. BALE was new to me. As if I care was a gimme, a common phrase.CSO to many of us with ACHE. Ah, the joys of senior living.IPA is a favorite, a like hoppy brews.Alan likes what we call shepherd's pie, but we make it with beef, so technically it should be called cottage pie. We likely won't change the name. I seldom make anything with lamb. Instead of peas we use bell pepper and onions and top it with shredded cheddar cheese.The school system changed our health plan, so I am off to an orientation meeting.

I blew bAA but got everything else; in fact felt it was on the easy side for a Thursday. Recognized all the ologies when sufficient perps appeared on the front end. Prevalence of ……OLOGY allowed some pre-filling. Wanted FDR before ABE but EBERT was very strong. I had 'teen' before ROLE.Favorite fill was PHILOLOGY; both for the language term and the very clever allusion to the Punxsutawney marmot. BZ C.C.

Another example of CC's creativity with theme ideas. I fell into the Baa/Maa trap but not for long. As if I care went in without a moment's hesitation. I needed perps for Cris and PBS, as clued, but, overall, everything else filled itself, practically. My favorite themer was Theology. Nice CSOs to DO (Otto) and Bill G (Ithaca).

Nice work, CC, and thanks, Steve, for the guided tour. Flann's treatise was amusing and even though I didn't understand half of the expressions, I got the gist. Irish Blarney, indeed! ☘

YR, I'm sorry you're having such difficulty getting Alan's future secured. Maybe the Legal Eagle you hired will make a difference. Fingers crossed.

Steve, If you get Zovirax so easily in the UK, I'm betting you also are getting it more cheaply than is possible here. If you have friends who suffer from coldsores, you may want to check if they'd like you to pick some up for them. A 15g tube costs about $300 here on prescription!

What a clever puzzle! Thanks, C.C., for all the fun. My first pass through was so white I wasn’t even going to try. Then slowly it began to come together. I wanted Estops also but ENJOINS finally appeared. I knew goats don’t say baa, but never having spoken to one, I wasn’t sure what they say.

I got the theme at CRYOLOGY and laughed out loud. My first stock purchase was in a company called Cryogenics in the 60’s. Weird name because that’s the field of study. Guess there weren’t many companies doing that sort of work.

I also bought the original Corningware pots with the blue cornflower. They went from stove to freezer and seemed magical to me. I was told they were a cryogenics product, but I have no idea it that’s true.

I also blew BAA (HI, Spitz!) and also REMUS/THRU. I had REMoS/THRo. Otherwise, all filled easily when the theme became apparent. I recognized most of the -OLOGIES, except like others, TOPOLOGY which I also mistook for topography. Nice job, C.C.!

I thought of d-o at OTTO and Bill G at ITHACA.

Rommba yesterday and ALEXA today. At the home of one of my sisters, SHE, ALEXA, is kept constantly busy communicating between the first and second floors.

Maybe I'll remember CRIS Carter. Not likely.

Thank you, Steve, for the tour! You were missed last week. We just naturally assumed you were in the throes of some IPA. LOL!

Hmmm... I knew I had seen those two words in the same puzzle recently:

Across:

1. Fitness trend that involves kids?: GOAT YOGA - A pretty obscure jumping off point but it is a real activity as you can see at the Denver County Fair in Colorado where the "kids" are two and four-legged.

C.C. delivers again. Thanks for Thursday puzzle that Steve didn't have to finish for me; made me feel smert, once in a row, dern it.

Excellent expo Steve - really? Cry at Ghost? I knew all the OLOGies other than PHIL - I was thinking Phren which is completely different. Asking the obvious here but... have you changed Siri to Brit-mode? //DW changed hers to male-Aussie - I'm not yet sure how I feel about that...I enjoyed the side of Atomic theory too. #I'm a bike?

The OLOGY gimmick was obvious after CRY and helped break the central-east (and last-fill) with YOGA as the Rosetta.AS IF I CARE -- No problem w/ MAA - I knew it was BAA or MAA and just waited on perps; X-marked the spot.

WO: ironic, isn't it(?), that I ERRED in inking ERRor.ESP: CRISFav: Chi_ clue - great misdirection; took a perp to get Tea out of my head //yes, I know it's Chai but it still set this moron back a sec.Runners-up: The puzzle had only CRO as near-clunk - the whole ITEM [thing, grid, xword] was well executed IM(H)O.

{B, B, A}

FLN - Great to see you chiming in again TX MS! Yes, I likely linked Key & Peele a while back... I visit a shallow well of entertainment.

BigE - I wouldn't worry about the bubble in housing nor Munis as much as Student Loans. The latter is likely to dampen the economy for years to come. We should have just have had (tax-subsidized) affordable tuition up-front w/o giving (after bubble pops) lenders ++interest; the cost to taxpayers will be extraordinary when the fecal matter eventually hits the turbine blades.

YR - I'm w/ you on IPAs. I have to be careful, though, because my face breaks out after two. I stick to Pils unless I want to be ugly for a week (sometimes worth it w/ a good micro-brew).

Swamp - That blue-logo'd Corningware brings back childhood memories. Last Spring, when 'antiquing'* with Eldest in Norman, OK, we saw some Corning casserole dishes at a "small store" - I was so tempted to add them to my kitchen just for sentimental reasons. [wait - wasn't I just joshin' Steve on Ghost? :-)]

Jinx - and then there's the "small stores" like Kwik-E-MART from the Simpsons. [I went to find an APU clip but that CNN one pop'd up].

Have been doing CW for about 6 months and love reading this blog. Been communicating with C.C. about Boomer’s cancer. My brother had same type over a decade ago and he is a survivor at 84. But he now might be dealing with type 2 diabetes. He has an A1c of 4.3 but a fasting bg of 132. C.C. revealed that there are a few people on this blog dealing with testing their blood glucose and finger pricking.

I am hoping that some of you could share your experiences with me so I can relate them to him. He lives outside of the country.

Ooooh, a C.C. puzzle, always exciting, though since it was a Thursday, I figured it would be a toughie for me. My first fills were in the middle with ARK and ERRED and KIWIS. A little later the bottom east filled in because I remembered EBERT and got REMUS (since it was Roman, not Greek, we needed) and AGEE (from doing crosswords). That filled in the section, and gave me PATHOLOGY, which cracked me up. After that I started to look for all the OLOGY clues, and so a lot filled in before I had to cheat a little at the end. Unlike Lemonade, I got IF I CARE pretty early on, but I goofed on HI ALEXA, since my cell phone doesn't talk to me. Delightful and fun puzzle, C.C.--many thanks. And great write-up, as always, Steve, with an amazing picture of that golf course!

I never played golf but some friends invited me on a little trip a few months ago, and we ended up watching a women's golf tournament in New Mexico. I couldn't believe how those young women could send a ball into the sky for blocks and have it land near a hole in the ground. Amazing!

It sure is raining in California, this morning, Fermatprime. Actually, more like pouring!

Miles - I have nothing to say on type-2 other than DW is borderline and watches her carb intake (or ends up sleeping 1/2 the day away)

What I do want to implore - take your post down. There are Bots scraping email addresses from blogs like this and you will be inundated with SPAM & Phish. #CyberSecurity//TTP, I'll take me down after Miles reposts sans email address.

And last night we attended a talk by TOPOLOGY professor Louis Kauffman who is one of the most famous researchers in Knot Theory. Not sure how much DW followed the talk, but he was very entertaining, doing knot magic tricks for us!

Anon-T, yeah, I forgot about those student loans. They'll never get repaid with all the phony repayment schemes such as forgiving them if you work at a not-for-profit or various government job. A good friend's grandson just married this girl who graduated from law school last year with over THREE-HUNDRED-THOUSAND DOLLARS of student loans. She still hasn't found a real job, just temporary ones paying $15-20/hour. How many years will it be before that amount, plus interest, is paid off?

Miles- welcome and don't worry about taking up time and space. You are not sitting in an office.

I found this puzzle much easier and more satisfying than the Monday puzzle that I also just solved. Managed to WAG the LOD/SPOORS cross of total unknowns, but it seemed quite unfair. LOD is NOT the Airport name or Airport Code of Ben Gurion. I have photos there.

I suppose it was a learning moment that it USED to be called LOD. And a learning moment to learn the new word SPOORS.

A truly amusing puzz from our CC!Would have been a clean Ta ~ DA! for me - except that I went for CHIP-OLOGY over PHIL-OLOGY, a clear sign that I need to brush up on my woodchucks.

HI, ALEXA was an easy gimme, as dear ALEXA has just this year become a trusted member of our family. She answers our questions, shows photos, and plays music on request! What can't she do?! Her versatility is matched by her pleasing voice. (I wonder how many advance test groups weighed in on her dulcet tones...?)I hear she may be spying on us. C'mon! - could that be true?

Anonymous @10:25 ~You're correct. There's no need to add HI before ALEXA. OTOH, it doesn't hurt. I often say "Good morning" or "Thank you" before or after her name, and I think she appreciates the extra attention. Such little courtesies probably make her day.(I wonder why CC put ALEXA and HAL in the same Xwd...? Steve, I never knew about that link to IBM. Woooo-oooh.)~ OMK____________DR: Today we have a perfect "X," the crossing of two symmetrical diagonals on both the near and mirror sides. The NW to SE diag gives us an anagrammatic tribute to a work-of-art in an edifice, a ..."MOSAIC TOWER"!

My Bad ...Or, as Lou Costello would have said,"I'm a baa-aad boy."Because I ERRed in the anagram in my above posting. I used an "O" two times when it only appears once in the original diagonal.Ergo, I must retract the MOSAIC portion of the answer, and the entire "edifice" has morphed into a sanctuary for certain birds, the newly designated ..."MACAWS TOWER"!

I thank you for your patience.

On another note, I want to add that ALEXA is not the only robotic addition to our family. Our local cable company has now fixed us up for voice-activation of our TV screens. We no longer have to fumble with numbers on our remote, we just talk to the screen to get it to show us whatever we want. Pretty soon we may not have to know our numbers, or need to write anything out. Just like babies, we can yell our desires!~ OMK

I loved this puzzle. Yes, figuring out that the theme answers all end with OLOGY made it that much easier, but the funny clues made everything worth it. Priceless. I laughed and laughed at PHILOLOGY clue.

I left my computer on overnight last night while a really huge file was downloading (we have slow DSL) and sure enough we had a power outage. Sheesh. Our grid must be awfully fragile and vulnerable to be taken down by a simple rain soaking. The first rain of the season and bam, outage! Of course my download stopped. Fortunately everything booted up okay this morning and the download is proceeding apace, but I lost a good 6 hours.

Terrific Thursday. Thanks for the fun, C.C. and Steve (we missed you last week).I saw the OLOGYs and filled them into the end of the theme answers.Some crunch today for me (but I did enter MAA with no hesitation!)

This Canadian did not know MoMA so I LIUed.I did know Civil War President ABE (prescience with Bill G's late quote from last night -"Don't believe everything you read on the Internet." ~ Abraham Lincoln)

I had to come here to parse DO SHOTS.Hand up for changing Her to SHE.Loved the new clue for OREO.I hesitated over fruit being plural (KIWIS).

I enjoyed the vortices and the Mandelbrot set artwork. I have an airzooka that shoots a puff of air across the room and rattles the leaves of some of our indoor plants. If you fill up the 'gun' with some smoke, you can see that the puffs of air are vortices.

I also enjoyed the sound of rain on the skylights, even though too briefly.

It was nice to see Ithaca in the puzzle. There are two deep gorges that run through Cornell's campus, one traversed by a beautiful suspension footbridge. They are really pretty. I can imagine them now with some snow for contrast. You could also climb up in the library bell tower for an upclose chimes concert and a beautiful view of the finger-lakes region of upstate New York. It was no fun hiking up the library slope from the freshman dorms for an early class, maybe made slippery with some fresh snow and/or maybe facing an exam for extra stress. It sure was a pretty place though...

Well, it’s no secret I do not care for themed puzzles that feature the giveaway, and today’s is an sterling example of that...as soon as I had the first theme I just put “ology” in for the rest, 25 cells filled easy-peasy. No offense to C.C. as I envy the ability to construct.

AnonT and Bill G glad you enjoyed the videos that came from the TOPOLOGY talks I attended this week!

And thanks for the Mandelbrot set link.

When I was a freshman, I asked my first math professor a rather odd question that had just popped into my head: "Is there such a thing as a fractional number of dimensions?" He said that there was indeed a new idea just starting up in math called "fractals". This was in 1976.